CLIMATE CHANGE IN DEVELOPMENT BANK COUNTRY ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSES

The World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) use an instrument called country environmental analysis (CEA) to help identify a client country's key environment-development issues and their likely relevance to future lending and technical assistance. This research examines the issue of climate change in the context of international development and then reviews existing practice on addressing climate change in World Bank and ADB CEAs between 2003 and 2009. It shows much greater attention over time to projected climate change impacts and climate change in relation to particular sectors. There is an overall upward trend toward increasing attention to climate change in other aspects as well. Based on review of CEA documents, resulting baseline data, and relevant literature, climate change review categories and guiding principles are proposed as a basis for the possible development of guidance materials and toward more systematic incorporation of the issue of climate change in future CEAs.